If you've been asked to get funding for a content strategy initiative and need to build a compelling business case, if you've been approached by your staff to implement a content strategy and want to know the business benefits, or if you've been asked to sponsor a content strategy project and don't know what one is, this book is for you. Rahel Anne Bailie and Noz Urbina come from distinctly different backgrounds, but they share a deep understanding of how to help your organization build a content strategy. Content Strategy: Connecting the dots between business, brand, and benefits is the first content strategy book that focuses on project managers, department heads, and other decision makers who need to know about content strategy. It provides practical advice on how to sell, create, implement, and maintain a content strategy, including case studies that show both successful and not so successful efforts. Inside the Book Introduction to Content Strategy Why Content Strategy and Why Now The Value and ROI of Content Content Under the Hood Developing a Content Strategy Glossary, Bibliography, and Index
Content is king... and the new kingmaker... and your message needs to align with your model and metrics and other mumbo jumbo, right? Whether you're slogging through theory or buzzwords, there's no denying content strategy is coming of age. But what's in it for you? And if you're not a content strategist, why should you care? Because even if content strategy isn't your job, content's probably your problem—and probably more than you think. You or your business has a message you want to deliver, right? You can deliver that message through various channels and content types, from Tweets to testimonials and photo galleries galore, and your audience has just as many ways of engaging with it. So many ways, so much content... so where's the problem? That is the problem. And you can measure it in time, creativity, money, lost opportunity, and the sobs you hear equally from creative directors, project managers, and search engine marketing specialists. The solution is content strategy, and this book offers real-world examples and approaches you can adopt, no matter your role on the team. Put content strategy to work for you by gathering this book into your little hands and gobbling up never-before seen case studies from teams at Johns Hopkins Medicine, MINI, Icebreaker, and more. Content Strategy at Work is a book for designers, information architects, copywriters, project managers, and anyone who works with visual or verbal content. It discusses how you can communicate and forge a plan that will enable you, your company, or your client get that message across and foster better user experiences. - Presents a content strategy framework and ways to implement in both in-house marketing departments and consultancies - Includes case studies, interviews, and lessons learned from retail, apparel, network television, business-to-business, automotive, non-profit, and higher ed brands - Details practical sales techniques to sell content strategy and use content strategy processes to sell other services and larger projects
DISTINGUISHED FAVOURITE: NYC Big Book Awards 2017 Content, in all its forms, is the single most critical element of any marketing campaign. Finding a successful equilibrium between content marketing and content strategy is difficult, but essential. Content - The Atomic Particle of Marketing goes beyond superficial descriptions of how to produce engaging social media content to offer the results of many years of deep quantitative research, and hours of interviews with senior marketers at some of the world's leading brands. Written by a recognized industry thought leader, Content - The Atomic Particle of Marketing explores how content functions in the broader framework of all marketing, as well as organizational concerns and IT decision making. It demonstrates the value content brings not only to "owned" media initiatives, such as a company website or blog, but also the essential role content plays in all other marketing initiatives, from social media to advertising to offline channels. It will enable readers to make the organizational, staffing, tools and process decisions necessary to get content up and running across divisions and organizational silos. Deeply researched and insightful, Content - The Atomic Particle of Marketing is, quite simply, the definitive research-based guide to content marketing.
Strategic Narrative Marketing will shift the way you think about and develop company messaging. Using this guidebook, you have an action plan to create a consistent, unified message that stands out and moves your organization from explaining – to leading. It addresses the persistent challenge of having something meaningful and compelling to say, and provides a framework to create a new industry narrative that is unique, differentiating and inspires category change and organizational leadership. Whether you need to align your company, change perceptions, gain influence as a true thought leader, or attract talent and investment, Strategic Narrative Marketing can help elevate your story to win in the market.
The result of thousands of conversations about web marketing with hundreds of companies, this handbook is a compilation of the most important and effective lessons and advice about the power of search engine optimization, social media, and email marketing. The first and only comprehensive guide to content marketing, this book explains the social, analytical, and creative aspects of modern marketing that are necessary to succeed on the web. By first covering the theory behind web and content marketing and then detailing it in practice, it shows how it is not only critical to modern business but is also a lot of fun.
Finally: a real-life, practical industry guide on content strategy and marketing. Practical Content Strategy & Marketing is your go-to guide on a practical content strategy and marketing education, created by author Julia McCoy as a written accompaniment to her new course, the Content Strategy & Marketing Course (www.contentstrategycourse.com). If you run a business, or if you’re trying to break into a top-dollar content marketing career, you need to know the practical concepts involved in content strategy and marketing. The “how,” the “why,” the “where” of content. Content marketing itself involves so many platforms, formats, content types, strategies, tools—and to get the most ROI from your approach to content marketing and strategy, you have to know how to do the most important content marketing practices. Forget FOMO and trying to figure out too many things. This guide will teach you the most important foundations and skills you actually need in order to get far in our booming industry of content marketing. For the first time in the industry, Practical Content Strategy & Marketing lays the “hows” of content marketing and strategy out, in a step-by-step approach, book form. Each section has written exercises built to solidify what you’re reading and learning—you’ll be able to fill these out with a pen. Don’t be afraid to mark up this book! Why is this book different? You’re not going to find corporate, birds-eye, mumbo-jumbo fluff in this content marketing guide. Quite the opposite. The author, Julia McCoy, won her way to the top (awarded as the top 33rd content marketer in 2016) the hard-knocks way. She dropped out of college and built a content agency, Express Writers, on nothing but $75 and the tenacity to go and follow her dream and see it through. Five years later, Julia’s business has served over 5,000 clients and employs over 40 team members, and her content consistently ranks at the top of Google and among the highest-shared for guest publications. Her go-to marketing strategy? A practical, hands-on content marketing approach that has ended up bringing her 99% of the clients her agency currently works with. With Julia as your guide, learn the principles and physical “how-to” behind these six key cores of effective content marketing: Module 1: Core Foundations of an ROI-Based Content Strategy Module 2: Audience Persona Discovery, Sales Funnel Content Mapping, & Style Guidelines Module 3: Understanding Keywords, SEO Opportunities, & Creating Keyword Reports Module 4: How to Build Content Cores (Your Content House) for an Authority Presence Online Module 5: Practical Content Creation (Your Site & Guest Blogging) Module 6: Content Promotion, Setting a Budget, Preparing Your Editorial Calendar, & Maintenance Along the way, you’ll get to build a working content strategy from the ground up, using the Brand Strategy Exercises in each module. Have your pen and thinking cap ready—and a brand you want to build an entire working strategy for! Practical Content Strategy & Marketing is a field guide for the smartest content marketers who know that strategy is the key to thriving in our world of new marketing through content. Bonus: leading business marketing expert Mark Schaefer joins Julia to write the foreword, and guests Sujan Patel, Michele Linn, Steve Rayson and more appear in guest lessons throughout the book.
Reach more customers than ever with TARGETED CONTENT Epic Content Marketing helps you develop strategies that seize the competitive edge by creating messages and “stories” tailored for instant, widespread distribution on social media, Google, and the mainstream press. It provides a step-by-step plan for developing powerful content that resonates with customers and describes best practices for social media sharing and search engine discoverability. Joe Pulizzi is a content marketing strategist, speaker and founder of the Content Marketing Institute, which runs the largest physical content marketing event in North America, Content Marketing World.
In the world of web design, if one wants to create a successful web site, one needs an effective content strategy. Return on Engagement shows web designers and developers how to implement an effective content strategy and how to stay ahead in the rapidly changing industry of web design. It presents best practices in terms of web design through a marketing function: content strategy, SEO, social media marketing, and success measurement to help web designers implement a strategy that ensures success for the site they are building. Return on Engagement shows web designers and developers how to not just design an aesthetically pleasing, functional website. This book shows those professionals how to implement marketing strategies and analysis into their website, thus ensuring its success. Nearly 3 years since the previous edition published, new best practices have been formed. Tools in which web developers use to analyze website metrics have advanced. New social media networks and communities have cropped up. New research in how audiences read and receive content has been done, subsequently refining best digital marketing practices. Return on Engagement features a step-by-step breakdown of how to use new tools, techniques, and technologies. The new edition also includes updated case studies of industry leaders who implement best practices on projects. Return on Engagement also features a regularly updated companion site that offers readers sample content, easy sharing tools, and web-based resources to help measure marketing viability of web properties.